Every day we hear a different word headlining the news. Since President Bill Clinton made news headlines with the word “is” by saying, “depends upon the meaning of is”, simple everyday words have become headlines with the meaning lines blurred.
For example, “seamless” is the latest ordinary word tossed around by the U.S. President, U.S. Secretary of Treasury, top newscasters, pundits, bloggers and children.
If you go to the dictionary to check out ordinary everyday words, you might be surprised. The word “seam” can have two opposing meanings. It can mean to separate or to unite. The formal definitions of “seam” are, “A visible line of juncture between two parts. A wrinkle, a scar, a thin stratum in a rock. To crack open; to unite. To mark with a cut or a furrow. To stitch together.” Accordingly, if these are definitions of the word “seam”, then “seamless” means no seam. No visible line of demarcation, no crack, no cut, no furrow, no scar, no wrinkle, no boundary.
The word “seam” has been used by the top power brokers in relation to the economy and transference of power and money. The word is coupled with transition. “Seamless transition” is the latest buzz phrase. After Congress passed the $700 billion bill to hand over, in one large bag of money to Mr. Paulson with no oversight, a la carte, he referred to it as a “seamless transition.”
